


the wine of your dreams

by paperiuni



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: And I Mean Shameless Fluff, Aphrodisiacs If You Squint, Consentacles, Fluff and Smut, Light-Hearted, M/M, Mild Kink, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Tentacles, The Most Polite Tentacle Entity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-29 00:47:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21401383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperiuni/pseuds/paperiuni
Summary: Magnus has a visitor. Alec is baffled, charmed, and ravished, mostly in that order.Or, tentacle sex for lovestruck fools.
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Comments: 51
Kudos: 493
Collections: Ixnael’s Recommendations, Tentacletober





	the wine of your dreams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lynne_monstr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lynne_monstr/gifts).

> Written for the tentacletober prompt "first time".
> 
> This is the silliest thing I've ever written and entirely what it says on the tin. Timeline irrelevant but somewhere in late season 2A.
> 
> If this is a point of interest for you: the tentacles are their own entity and they are, in their way, eager and willing participants in the shameless smut. Enthusiastic consent and general sweetness are practiced all around.

Here's a thing about dating Magnus Bane: just when Alec thinks he has the hang of it, something new comes up.

In this case, _ something new _ doesn't just mean a so far unknown personal habit or a startling bedroom trick, either. Alec can take in his stride the dinners on the other side of the world and the surprise Seelie parties with music played on living flowers and alcohol made from fruit that never grew from the soil of the Earth.

He even liked the glimmerberry wine, he confesses to Magnus in the swaying aftermath of the evening, but there was probably a reason it was served in goblets the size of particularly dainty thimbles.

So there was, Magnus says, indulgent, and gets Alec to bed. He has a fresh-brewed hangover cure sitting on the nightstand when Alec emerges from breathless, heated dreams twelve hours later, abominably late for patrol. Alec downs it, as per the scribbled instructions. Magnus himself has vanished on some errand. The brew quells Alec's headache but not the roaming buzz under his skin, like a polite but baffled bumblebee knocking from blossom to blossom.

He'll ask Magnus about it later. He's gone on duty in worse conditions. 

All through the patrol, Izzy keeps giving Alec the side-eye. Once he catches her whispering to Clary, only to have them both poorly muffle their giggles. It's only back at the Institute, seeing himself in the bathroom mirror, that he realizes exactly what is off.

It looks like somebody sprinkled fine salt on him. Powdery patterns speckle the side of his neck. He lifts his arms to find whisper-thin traces glittering at the inside of his elbow and low on his stomach. It was the marks on his neck that caught Izzy's attention. The majority of them are in more compromising places.

That throws him a bit. Especially when his inspection in the mirror concludes that they're all places he _ likes _to be touched. Magnus's fingers and lips have worn most of them well. The shimmer is on his skin like rubbed-in dye, invisible except when the light hits it right.

_ was there something weird in the seelie booze? _he texts to Magnus, then pulls on a high-collared shirt for dinner.

There's no answer by the time Izzy accosts him in the cafeteria. Not even dinner is sacred when she's on a research bender, and this one is quickly picking up steam. The Kuri demons they chased down are a fascinating mutation in the common breed, and Alicante is desperate for more intel. Izzy also steals half his baked potato amid the jumbled explanation, the gist of which is that Alec needs to finish his mission report stat, so she can send the data to some contact in Alicante's R&D yet tonight.

_ Nothing dangerous. Come over for a night cap and I'll explain_, says Magnus's message at last. It lights up Alec's phone screen as he's staring grudgingly at his tablet.

_ that's a pretty transparent excuse if you just wanna see me,_ Alec types up. Then he deletes the words. Is that too _ something _ when you've been dating for about a month? He takes refuge in honesty, and actually sends, _ ok, be there in an hour. i'll have to bring some work. sorry. _

_ As long as it doesn't involve ichor on the living room rug_. That counts as an okay.

_ no body fluids. promise. _

_ I can think of some I wouldn't mind_, Magnus replies, because he's awful like that. Alec likes him all the same—likes him, in fact, to a stomach-dropping, giddy degree—so overall the joking is a good sign.

Alec shouldn't dwell on the images Magnus's banter brings up: it's barely been a week since they debauched that same living room rug in a spectacular fashion. Alec went to a briefing the next day with the ache of Magnus's fingers still between his legs and his head deep in the clouds of that memory. It keeps him warm for the subway ride, too.

Unlike some people who've been granted entry through Magnus's wards, Alec wasn't raised in a barrel, so he knocks and waits for an answer. Sometimes the door will unlock itself and swing inward. At others, Magnus will get it in person.

This time, the door opens, and a sleek appendage mottled in dark purple curls away from the foyer and toward the couch.

The couch is covered in a slow-shifting heap of _ tentacles_, shaded from royal blue to violet and almost black. Some of them look hazy around the edges, the lamplight glowing pearlescent through them, while others lie in solid, comfortable coils along the armrests.

Alec goes for his seraph blade. Then, the hilt under his fingertips, he stops to consider.

A tentacle let him in the door. They're here, in Magnus's lair, in his sanctum; the lamps burn soft and inviting, and the air smells of the leftover sweetness of a recent magical working. The wards around this place could turn a behemoth demon to cinder and smoke in a few fell blasts.

"Magnus?" he calls out.

"Here, Alexander." Magnus pokes his head, followed by the rest of him, out the door to the workroom. He's in his shirtsleeves, though the shirt is jewel-hued silk and carelessly open at the collar to show the dragon ivory necklace flung askew by his arcane exertions. His smile is unstudied, lighting up his eyes. As usual, Alec could eat him with a spoon.

That may be an Izzy metaphor, but it fits.

A tentacle as thick as Alec's wrist slithers up in Magnus's wake, as if to touch him, then dissolves into a shadowy outline in midair. Alec dips his head into Magnus's greeting kiss—a habit he got eagerly into by day two of them dating—but that's as long as he can contain himself. 

"Hi. Uh, there's a thing on your couch."

"Yes," Magnus says. "What will it be? Gin and tonic? A splash of Arcadian cordial and corn whiskey with lime? Tea?"

"Tea's good." Alec makes a conscious gesture of hanging up his holster, though he slips his stele in his pocket. "Just so you know, the thing on your couch is kind of interfering with my ability to talk about anything else."

He has the most uncanny feeling that the tentacles are observing him. This happens even though there doesn't seem to be a central body joining them together: they're a tangle of sinuous limbs, some smooth, others dotted with suckers, sliding in and out of phase.

"Be polite." Magnus pats him on the arm in that way of his that would be patronizing if it wasn't also oddly, instantly reassuring. "We went to that Seelie gala yesterday so you could get drunk off your pretty ass on fey beverages, but also so I could secure some particular help."

"Okay." Alec rolls his sleeves up to the elbow, in concession to the cozy warmth of the loft. Everything about Magnus says _ at ease_, so Alec's determined not to wind himself up. At least this latest twist of weirdness has beggared the fact that something marked out his sweet spots in scintillating body art. "So you have a new research assistant?"

"Well, yes. I've invited a sapient extradimensional phenomenon into my lair. They're helping me hunt down an ingredient. The details would take so much warlock jargon that I'll spare you."

"I'm good with the short version."

"That rather was the short version." Magnus lets Alec trail him to the kitchen, leaving the tentacles to their lazy conquest of the couch. "There is one detail I should share. It was a minor factor in why I asked you to come over."

"Only a minor factor?" Alec leans against a counter as Magnus fills the electric kettle and finds the tea. There seems to be a lot less floating kitchen paraphernalia involved than usual. Come to think of it, Magnus also didn't offer to pick him up via portal. Alec tries not to take it as given that Magnus will, but most often he does. It helps them make the most of their sometimes limited time together.

"A medium factor?" Magnus runs a hand through his hair. The emerald streaks he had in it last night are gone. "Are you asking me to put a percentage value to how much it was because I wanted to see you?"

"I'm joking. I hear it's a thing people do. For example, when their boyfriends are making them a little nervous."

At least the word _ boyfriend _rolls off his tongue without a snag.

Magnus flashes a dry but amiable smile. "The thing on my couch is an oneirometer cluster. You may have heard of them?" As Alec shakes his head _ no_, he goes on, "They're not a creature in the usual sense. More like a... condensed awareness. They live in the spaces between dimensions, and can safely move in and out of most realms. Which is why they're very helpful for my latest project."

"Is there a reason why it—they're called a _ dream teller_?" Alec was never big on Greek, but it's part of the arsenal of a well-lettered Shadowhunter.

"A fanciful term coined by an insufferable colleague, but it stuck, so what can you do?" Magnus twists his hand in a gesture of breezy ennui. "It's not inaccurate. They collect sensory information. With the right rituals, it's possible for other intelligent life forms to tap into their awareness and share their senses. And scout out realms that are too dangerous to simply traipse through."

Alec's mouth opens into a slow O of comprehension. "Is that why you're not doing magic right now? Because you're..."

"In a temporary sensory connection with the cluster. I can _ do _ magic, but it's easy for spells to go a bit haywire when your... perception is altered. I'm attuned to a few more dimensions than I'm used to." Magnus shifts his weight. "I would've told you in the morning, but you were sleeping very soundly."

"Oh. Okay." Alec makes a _ hold on _sign, his palms out. "Suddenly my weird encounter of the day seems a lot less weird."

When Magnus ventures out a hand, fingertips brushing Alec's own, Alec folds their hands together without hesitation. He feels Magnus relax at the touch.

"I'm guessing you didn't read the labels at the drinks table too closely," Magnus says.

"We were invited guests. That means it's safe to have what's offered, right?" Seelie etiquette was definitely a part of his studies Alec could not slack on.

"It was safe." Magnus gives a laugh that's only a merry hitch in his throat. "The glimmerberry is for new lovers, or those looking for a memorable night. It makes you light and happy, and well, smooths the proceedings."

"That's why Izzy was laughing at me." Alec groans under his breath. "She thought we got wild in some Seelie bower in the middle of a party."

"That would've been a much more pleasant way to spend the evening. The marks will fade in a couple of days—and so will the buzz of it, if you're still feeling any." Magnus strokes a thumb over the inside of Alec's arm, soft and pensive, right where the skin shimmers. It sends a tingle of desire rushing through Alec. It's ridiculous, but there you have it. Magnus doesn't need to do much more than breathe in Alec's general vicinity to make his knees go weak.

That's on a _ normal _day. Today feels even worse, and now he knows why.

"Report," he says, half a gasp. "Sorry. That's the thing I have to do. Won't take long, but I promised."

"Of course." Leaning up, Magnus kisses him on the cheek, which twists Alec's stomach in yet another delighted knot. "The couch is taken, but you can have your pick of the desk or the floor cushions."

Like every time, Alec ends up on the floor cushions. Magnus has gotten used to his need to sprawl in strange configurations while he works. The tea adds its notes of pepper and cinnamon to the balmy air.

The only thing that makes this unlike every quiet evening they've ever had is that Magnus, nestled in one end of the couch, is surrounded by the oneirometer. Alec thinks that's the proper term. It's all one _ thing_, with a collective awareness. Magnus said something about how physical nearness makes the attunement faster, and Alec left it at that.

The tentacles drape around Magnus like a drowsy, mobile mantle. Now and then, one of them extends across the room to probe at a painting or a brick column or coil on the coffee table. The Persian rug has attracted a heap of purple explorers.

Alec tries to keep his brain oriented to the report. Magnus gives a convincing impression of being lost in his book.

_ For him, it must be just another Monday_, Alec figures. _ A nest of tentacles comes over for tea and some spying on other realms. No big deal. _

He makes a sound that is _ not _a yelp when something slides up along his shoulder.

An inch-thick, silky tentacle sways away from him with an air of apology. Magnus peers over the cover of his book.

"They're curious about textures in this dimension. If you'd rather not have your hair touched, just shoo them off. They're fast learners."

Resolving not to be so easily spooked, Alec slumps back to his tablet with a jot more drama than necessary. "I don't mind. Just surprised me."

He types up another paragraph while the tentacle strokes through his hair. It's kind of soothing, not unlike a patient, friendly hand on the same spot.

He no longer starts when another curls over his calf, intrigued by the denim of his jeans leg. It zigzags between the denim and the kilim weave of the cushion squashed under his hip.

Of all the things Magnus might've invited over, the oneirometer is probably on the nicer end of the scale. Alec watches a tentacle snake along the shadow cast by the couch. He holds out a hand to it, palm up, and it twines a delicate tip around his forefinger. Its—skin? surface?—is cooler than his skin, supple and a touch slippery.

The tentacle slips free. Alec bites back a chuckle. He feels comfortably heavy and... safe, he supposes. Like Magnus makes him feel. Like he's landed somewhere soft. Even when that soft place is crowded by investigative tentacles.

Distracted by this, he takes a moment to realize another of them is sweeping back and forth low on his back. His shirt has been hiked up by a movement, and the tentacle undulates along the bare skin at the base of his spine.

The slow rhythmic touch is something other than soothing. It's like the ebbing and flowing shivers under his skin have found a focal point. Sudden sensation stirs deep in his stomach, roughens his breath, quickens his heart.

There's an alien consciousness casually studying him, and he's fast approaching a hard-on. The pulse at the base of his cock is languid but telling.

Oh, and his boyfriend is lounging two feet away, immersed in his reading.

Alec slaps the tablet shut. At his movement, the tentacles scatter, blinking out into smoky, insubstantial shapes.

It's not even embarrassment that flushes his face. That would imply he feels mostly awkward. This is so far beyond _ awkward _ he couldn't see it with a telescope. This is a heady cocktail of startled and horny with a jolt of sheer undiluted _ what the fuck _for extra kick.

_ I'm a lot to get used to_, Magnus told him, and was right in ways Alec couldn't even imagine.

How's he going to open this one? _ Your houseguest is getting a bit too friendly, and I'm accidentally turned on, but it might also be the aftereffects of the Seelie booze. Please advise. _

Also, Magnus said _ sensory connection. _ As in, Magnus is, to some degree, aware of what the tentacles sense and do.

Trying to scrape his wits together, Alec looks up. He's on his stomach on the strewn cushions, but he has a line of sight to Magnus.

Magnus is not reading anymore. He's slid down the couch to lie on his back. His eyes are soft and golden, and something raw and hungry is coiled up behind the lazy blink he points at Alec.

The rest of the room sort of stops existing. Alec's cock presses against the fabric of his jeans with some more urgency. The tentacles hover at the sides, keeping the space between them clear.

Magnus's right hand rests on his stomach, but he extends the left toward Alec. If this were a normal evening, Alec would take it for a come-on, clasp Magnus's hand and climb onto the couch to be lost in him.

"Was that you?" he mutters. His voice seems to have absconded. He _ wants_, and Magnus making unglamoured bedroom eyes at him is _ not helping. _

Alec's okay with weird. It's just that the deep end of this weirdness goes deeper than he thought.

"They find you fascinating." Magnus doesn't sound any steadier than Alec. "And I find you delectable." He pulls his hand back to rest his cheek on it as he twists onto his side. "But their curiosity is academic. Mine is anything but. Then there's the part where you may be slightly compromised by the Seelie wine."

"Yeah. I thought about that. That doesn't really answer my question."

Magnus's tongue flickers over his lip. It's a thoughtful gesture, not meant to tease. Alec is a little teased, anyway. "The oneirometer doesn't have feelings in the human sense of the word. They don't desire you, they just want to _ know_. I... feel what they feel, and I add meaning to the sensation because it's you." He lets out a small sigh. "I should probably have anticipated this."

Alec frowns. "Have you done this before? The attunement thing?"

"That obvious, was I?" Magnus looks almost bashful, but holds the eye contact. "No, I haven't. It's a relatively new type of magic—tried and tested, but not without its kinks, as it were."

"You just _ had _to use that word."

"I dare say you like it." Magnus's hand strays behind his ear.

"I do, though." Alec huffs, half surprised by his own admission. He feels more together, but the lust has only mellowed into longing. At the edges of his vision, the tentacle cluster piles back onto the far end of the couch. Most of them are only slightly there, present as no more than a violet sheen in the air. "Are you asking if I wanna take this totally not-freaky magic project of yours further? To have sex like this? What would we even _ do_?"

"Do you want me to ask you?" Magnus raises his eyebrows, and his face softens with it. "Even faerie brews can't create feelings. They can only heighten what's there. If you want me now, even knowing I'm linked to the oneirometer, then that's real."

What is Alec's _ life _ that this is a real thing he's thinking of doing? It's not enough that Magnus blew wide open the barriers that contained him tightly within himself. It's that Magnus keeps drawing him out, peeling back the layers of the world, surprising him with joy.

He swallows slowly. "I want you."

Magnus leans out of the couch so he can cup Alec's cheek. Alec doesn't know why he didn't think to scoot closer sooner, but he lifts his face into the contact.

"I watched you," Magnus says, low. "There on the floor, trusting and content, and I felt how they touched you, how it made you shiver. I wanted to see you unraveled like that, meticulously, touch by touch."

Now is a really good time to discover that this idea gets Alec hot. Not just turned on, either, but that specific kind of pliant and yearning that only Magnus can make him. His voice comes out breathy and purposeful. "Ask me."

Magnus's gaze turns open and direct. If he sees a hint of doubt in Alec, all of this will stop. It should shock Alec how certain he is of that. "Do you want _ this_? Not just me in general, but this. The extradimensional visitor included."

"Yeah," Alec whispers. Then, because his heart trip-hammers with alternating beats of thrill and nerves, "Kiss me? Just once?"

Magnus steals the end of his question by pulling him close. Alec bends into him, a hand behind his head, the kiss a languid wander of a familiar path that's branched in new ways.

Coming up from the kiss, Alec nips at Magnus's lip, lets it slide free from his teeth. "You think my ass is pretty, huh?"

Magnus tips his head back in a likeness of profound thought, but his shoulders hitch with laughter. "It has its charms. If you want an informed opinion, why don't you refresh my memory?" His hand drifts down Alec's side, as far as he can reach with Alec leaned over him.

Another touch roams up Alec's thigh, the smooth curl of a tentacle. He inhales, hard and tattered, then lets the breath out. Another tentacle lands on his shoulder. It taps on his collar in a query, or maybe it's studying the change in the weave.

As he turns, the tentacle strokes its tip over his nose. _ Right._ They have some idea that people tend to communicate with their faces. Magnus grips his hip, firm and grounding.

"It's all good," Alec tells the tentacle, as amazement and apprehension both swoop in his stomach. "You can, uh, take the shirt."

A ticklish flurry of appendages grasp at the hem, then skim velvety across his ribs as they disrobe him in one efficient tug. Alec is left gasping, and on the couch, Magnus utterly fails to suppress his merriment. Alec scowls down at him to no effect whatsoever.

"Still good?" Magnus chuckles, but his gaze is hot and keen under the laughter.

"Yeah." Alec traces his hand across Magnus's chest; the dragon tooth on its chain presses into his palm. "You wanna watch, hm?"

"For now," Magnus murmurs. "It's a very good view from here." To punctuate his words, he guides Alec's hand down. His cock stirs to fullness against Alec's fingers.

Alec peers up at Magnus through his lashes, made brave by the prior experience that Magnus _ really _ likes it when he does that. "Then I want you to be patient."

"Oh?"

Through the soft fabric of Magnus's pants, Alec seeks out the tip of his cock. Magnus's hips tremble as he rubs the pad of his thumb into the tender spot under the crown. "No touching. Me or yourself. Just watch."

"You drive a hard bargain." Arching his back in a motion that ripples from shoulder to hip in a positively obscene way, Magnus settles into the throw pillows. Even fully clothed, he's deliciously disheveled. "What do I get out of this, other than the luscious sight of you without your shirt on?"

God, Alec wants to pull Magnus down to the floor and have his way with him. Alec also wants him to never look away.

"There was some talk of my ass." The tentacles dwell along Alec's exposed skin, cool licks of contact here and there. His runes and scars draw some attention from them, but there's a nexus of curious touches low on his back.

He knows that spot. It's where Magnus will linger with toothy kisses before licking into him. It's where Magnus will splay his hand while Alec fucks him, and where his fingers will sneak under Alec's belt when they're out and nobody's looking.

Like the side of his throat or the inside of his thighs, it must be dusted with the faerie marks.

Magnus cocks a brow, then lets his eyes narrow into crescents of gold. Lust wraps an iron grip around Alec. Lingering Seelie charms or not, he's so gone for this man.

Seelie charms _ or _ disarmingly polite tentacles that are psychically bonded with this man, he amends his thought. It doesn't seem to matter.

He makes a show of flicking his belt buckle open. With the way his heart thunders, he has to wet his mouth before the words form properly. "Go ahead."

He holds his breath as a deep blue tentacle winds around his middle. Its tiny suckers scratch sensation across his skin. More dexterous than a finger, the tip hooks itself into the waist of his jeans and pulls, until Alec's jeans and underwear slide down around his thighs. His cock, still nestled in the denim, jerks needily against the drag of the fabric.

His hands ball at his sides. He fights the urge to buck into something: his own palm, if nothing else comes up.

"Mmm, that's progress," Magnus murmurs, half dreamy. He draws an imperious circle with two fingers.

A gasp escapes Alec as the tentacles turn him around in place. He's totally ascribing a human behavior to an alien thing, but _ courtesy _ is what comes to mind. A nudge at his thighs, a steering limb around his waist, and there he is, at an angle that lets him look at Magnus along his own shoulder.

"Better?" Two months ago, he'd never have imagined himself capable of the audacity in that word.

Without answering, Magnus crooks a finger at a tentacle atop the couch. With a soft whump, it lands behind the couch and slithers away. Promises flare in Magnus's half-lidded eyes. "If you could see yourself, sweetheart. You're ravishing."

"I thought _ ravished _was the point here," Alec says. Any moment now he'll remember he doesn't know how to be on display. He wants Magnus to touch him, for something to take them onward before he burns up under Magnus's gaze.

He also told Magnus not to touch him. Magnus's arms are folded on top of the throw pillows in a suggestion of nonchalance, but his fingers flicker against his arm.

Movement winds up along Alec's side: a small, opalescent tentacle, apparently enticed by the texture of his chest hair. Another strokes over his neck, and for a fleeting second he thinks it's about to twist all the way around, before it slithers down his front instead. His breath goes out in a calming hum that allays the spike of tension.

_ Not around the throat. _Just like Magnus hates hands over his mouth or being restrained in a few other specific ways. Magnus knows, so they know. 

Yet a third tentacle probes at Alec's fisted hand. He loosens his fingers enough for it to slide through, and it loops its tip around his thumb. He finds it in himself to wonder if this is its understanding of a handhold.

The thought coaxes a laugh from him, a rasp of amusement that's cut by his moan when the tentacle on his chest sweeps over his nipple. The supple suckers tease it into a tight peak. The tentacle reverses its course, and repeats the stroke, slow and close to the skin.

Magnus swallows a noise. A wavering, _ oh, fuck _sort of noise, one Alec knows very well. Knowing that Magnus is not as collected as he looks, splayed regally over the couch, makes him feel tantalizingly smug.

Another tentacle comes up the side of Alec's clothed thigh. It's an iridescent purple, its surface smooth as polished stone. It slides across his buttock, and the tip curls into the crease of his ass. His knees are apart to brace him better, but the stroke makes his cock throb with the knowledge that he's spread open under Magnus's hooded gaze. It pins him in place more securely than the otherworldly entity wrapped around his body.

The entity is also, in a way Alec is slightly hazy on, feeding the things it senses back to Magnus. Does Magnus feel the purple tentacle nudge itself behind Alec's balls, or the wet pulse of his cock at that? Is it like having his own fingers there?

At that moment, another tentacle—Alec is no longer sure which one—taps on his buttock, a quick flat clap of contact. Alec clamps his hand on his mouth, biting into his finger so as not to moan.

Okay. That he was not expecting. Not the slap, or the sudden blooming heat in his groin. He tips his head back and wills his control not to falter.

Magnus's contemplative hum curls around Alec like a caress. "How was that, darling?"

Alec can't look at him right now.

"Again?" Magnus's voice is husky, but the question is genuine. Before his nerves desert him, Alec nods. _ Please. _ Out of all the things that could undo him, it's _ this_.

The next smack is slightly harder, ringing through him in a heady ripple. He presses his other hand to his stomach, and the third slap squeezes his fingers into a fist and shakes his thighs.

He's so hard he could scream. It comes out as a whine from between his teeth.

The flat of the tentacle lands on his ass two, three, four more times, measured and exquisite, and he strains not to grasp his cock and stroke himself until he comes.

"You are gorgeous," Magnus mumbles. "Oh, Alexander. Tell me what you want."

_ God_, that's very nearly cruel of Magnus, to ask that when Alec's fighting not to be overwhelmed by a stunning orgasm. It builds in his body, a heavy, simmering charge. "Ah, I don't—I can't—"

He drags in a breath, to try and finish the sentence, and then Magnus bursts out laughing.

The moment cracks cleanly in two. The tentacles fade, as they seem wont to do at the first sign of disruption, as Alec jerks into bewildered alertness from his sensory fugue.

What he sees is this: Magnus has a tentacle grasped in his palm, deep blue and glistening wetly. It's surrounded by half a dozen others that poke it with twitching tips or slide experimentally along it. If Alec didn't know better, he'd say the blue tentacle is _ preening _to be the center of attention. Magnus's free hand is clasped on his mouth as an inefficient barrier to his bubbling laughter.

Alec can't help it. Magnus's joy eclipses both his arousal and his bemusement, and is absolutely infectious besides.

"What the _ fuck_?" He may have wanted to sound irritated, but he ends up chuckling. He slumps against the armrest, never mind that his ass is hanging out of his jeans. "Is that—"

"I should've known," Magnus says. "They're utterly tactile things. Covering them in... substances is enthralling to them."

"That's lube."

"Oh, it is." Magnus gives him a bright, utterly unapologetic look. "I may have to add more. They're getting it everywhere."

They hover for a second, as if each daring the other to press this line of inquiry.

Alec knows he looks debauched: he's had the world's most cordial tentacles all over him, studiously charting every bit of skin target-painted as sensitive. Still, Magnus has hardly been touched, and he's far from composed. Color burns on his cheeks, and his lips are dark and plump from his teeth.

"This sounds like a plot," Alec says, rough with what the sight intimates. The tentacle in Magnus's grip is a generous inch in diameter, with a stripe of delicate suckers on one side. The uncorked bottle of lube sits on the coffee table between their forgotten tea mugs.

Shooing the other tentacles gently away, Magnus smiles to one side. "Only if you say yes."

"I'm gonna break my own rule now," Alec gasps, because a man has his limits, and apparently Alec's is at the point of his boyfriend tenderly offering to fuck him with a helpful tentacle.

He sinks his hands in Magnus's hair and kisses him like he's longed to kiss him ever since their last one. Magnus's mouth opens to him, warm and eager, as Magnus drapes his free arm around Alec's shoulders. It's clumsy and ardent and sweet enough that Alec's heart lurches over a beat.

At length, Magnus gasps against his lips. "Well. That was certainly something, but I'd still like to know—"

"Yes," Alec says. "Yes, fuck, yes, but... I want you there. Here. Closer." He slides his hands under Magnus's shirt to the familiar contours of his sides. "You know what I mean."

Magnus tucks a kiss next to his ear. "Just try and pry me away."

"Just long enough to get your clothes off? Since you can't banish 'em?"

"It's not that I _ can't_, but—" Magnus looks out over his shoulder. "A spot of assistance, if you'd be so kind?"

He leans away enough that three or four tentacles can divest him of his shirt and necklace. His hands land on Alec's shoulders. "Catch me?"

Grasping the issue, Alec sways back onto his knees and pulls Magnus with him. In the jumble of limbs and pillows and Magnus clinging to him, laughing all the while, Magnus loses the rest of his clothing to the acquisitive tentacles. A clump of them twine over his discarded silk shirt like pirates around an unearthed treasure.

Magnus presses his nose to Alec's. "I trust this is close enough."

By way of an answer, Alec steals another kiss, and the desire underneath their banter rushes back to the surface. Magnus is strong and warm against him, his hands gentle on his back. Gentle and sticky, for that matter. Alec is reminded where they were.

The blue tentacle curves along Magnus's shoulder with an inquisitive air. Alec watches, mesmerized, as Magnus offers his palm to it. There's a part of him going _ I can't believe I said yes to this_, but he's gotten better at telling his inner voices to shut up.

"Out of curiosity," he says, partly to distract himself, "what were you gonna do with that if I said no?"

"If it wasn't going in you, it was going in me," Magnus says, brash as you please. "I don't think anyone's done that yet while linked to an oneirometer. A small probe for a man, a deep thrust for thaumaturgical scholarship..."

"Oh my _ god. _Misquote the Moon landing to me again and I'm out of here."

"I sincerely doubt that." Magnus ruffles Alec's hair, brushing the sweat-curled strands away from his brow. "After you went to all that trouble to get me in your lap."

Alec's so fond of him that his heart might burst with it. "You got me."

Magnus's hand trails down, along Alec's prickling skin, to cup his half-hard cock through his jeans. "I'm afraid we're at the point where your pants are an offense to my senses."

With a frown of utmost concentration, Magnus strips him. The wash of magic flings his clothes into one of the armchairs. Alec has no time to worry about any side effects, because he's skin to skin with Magnus, and then, Magnus crushes their mouths together like he can't bear to go another second without kissing Alec.

They both sink into the kiss with the same abandon: Magnus lets Alec brace him up, straddling Alec's thighs, and stifles a yearning noise into Alec's cheek. His left hand skims Alec's chest, his thumb circling each sensitized nipple in turn.

"Your skin does feel a little different," Magnus says, like it is a pleasant discovery. "I thought—thought maybe it was only the oneirometer."

Alec has to work his way through the needy groan that Magnus's touch stirs before he can reply. "Last time I drink _ anything _at a Seelie party."

"If you say so." Magnus nibbles at his throat. His cock swells at the familiar wetness of Magnus's lips.

Then something slick and cool touches his back and glides down the line of his spine, a steady path between his spread ass cheeks. Magnus's weight anchors him in place. Magnus presses a soothing palm onto his stomach, a needless comfort, since Alec shivers only with anticipation.

"I can't believe I let you talk me into this." He muffles the mock complaint into Magnus's hair. "Please don't stop."

Magnus was last inside him yesterday morning, and they both know it. He still clutches at Magnus as the tentacle slides into him, the tip widening into a solid, breathtaking girth. The suckers catch on his rim in a ripple of sensation that has him moaning against Magnus's shoulder. All the pent-up lust rattles through the last of his hesitation, leaving only the heady, fluid strokes in and out of him.

Another tentacle curls around the small of his back. A third lays itself against the back of his neck, while Magnus scatters kisses along his throat. Magnus's hands fit themselves to his skin in blind patterns, as if nothing were so important as the fitful flow of Alec's breaths.

His body arching back, Alec gasps through the spate of pleasure. It's not like having Magnus's cock or even a toy in him: the tentacle flexes and curls in stunning, probing rhythms. When it finds his prostate, he shouts, short and ragged, at the shock of feeling.

"All right?" Magnus mumbles. Alec manages a rapid, jerky nod. He's a little beyond words while the tentacle pulses against that one electric spot and he can only shudder and clench around it.

Then it draws back, almost lazily, and flickers its tip around his rim, a slow, dreamy tease. It's not much better for words, but the stars recede from his vision. His cock curves thick against his stomach. Magnus rests his brow on Alec's, the tips of his fingers playing over the shaft of his cock.

Alec's composure is in a hundred tossed pieces, but he musters his wits to ask, "Hey. What about you?"

Magnus huffs fondly. "I'm processing how it feels to fuck you with something that can find every sweet spot inside you, too. I'm well entertained."

"Academic curiosity, totally satisfied." Alec pinches his eyes shut with the effort to grasp that. "I mean more—is this supposed to be one of those times where I suck you off later? Because it feels like a blowjob's not enough to balance _ this_."

Magnus chuckles, a touch abashed, as if Alec unintentionally hit upon some hidden truth. "Alexander, we talked about reciprocity. And how it should not be quite absolute. You don't have to count my orgasms."

"Unless I want to." Alec leans in to kiss him. It feels a little different: shaky and tender, and they linger there, lips almost touching. "Tell me."

At this stage, what does Magnus have to be coy about? Only maybe it's not the _ what _ of it. It's rather the _ how_: the skin-drunk closeness, the care with which Magnus cradles Alec's cheek, the way Alec just wanted Magnus in his arms.

When Magnus says, "I really want you inside me," Alec has to swallow around a lump in his throat.

"Like this?" They're slotted together, supported by the twining tentacles. It's oddly comfortable, when Alec stops to think about it.

"Exactly like this." Magnus wraps his hand around Alec's shaft for a slow, aching stroke. "Your beautiful cock in me, while you're full and hot and begging for it. So I can feel you from both sides."

"Oh, god." Alec supposes his near moan is assent enough. Also: how many times can Magnus almost make him come in the course of one evening?

He manages not to be undone as Magnus takes his cock in by maddening increments. Alec yearns to hurry him, to push deeper, but the position keeps him down. The tentacles, too, seem to be waiting for Magnus, so Alec wraps his arms around him and sighs out his tension against his shoulder.

"Sorry to make you do all the work. I'm a little held down."

"Darling," Magnus says, blithe and breathless with the sweet effort, "it's entirely my pleasure."

"I hope so," Alec chuckles, light-headed, easily amused.

Magnus tips him up for a bruising kiss. The tentacle plunges slippery and perfect into him again even as Magnus grinds down on his cock.

From there, Alec loses track of everything but sensation. The rolls of Magnus's hips and his open-mouthed moans as he tightens around Alec's cock. His hands on Alec's back and the smearing kisses they trade. The slip and slither of the tentacles on both their skin.

Alec feels a second one stroke over his swollen rim. It pushes in as the first one retreats. White-hissing pleasure lances through him as they alternate, the velvety smoothness of one and the tingling suckers of the other.

In his lap, Magnus shudders and groans, "Alexander, oh, _ please _—"

"Yeah," Alec pants, even the brief, hoarse syllable an effort, "yes, yes, Magnus, fuck—"

Magnus sinks down one more time and comes, spending himself across Alec's burning skin. Alec follows him almost at once: the last pleasurable contractions of Magnus's body finally wring the bridled orgasm from him.

Even at the busiest of times, they have a tacit agreement to take a moment for the afterglow. This time, Alec tumbles into the floor cushions, Magnus sprawls untidily across him, and they languish, messy and replete, catching their breaths. A tentacle tousles Alec's hair, then curls up on the couch with the rest of the cluster.

At length, the ceiling stops swimming in Alec's vision. Magnus has gone boneless with the same satisfaction that fills Alec, his head rested on his arm, his ear to Alec's heart.

"So," Alec says, "are we gonna do this again so you can get fucked for science, too?"

Magnus swats him softly in the shoulder. "Fires in the deep. I'm barely capable of abstract thought, and you want a second round?"

Alec considers that. "Uh, no, not yet. Maybe in the morning. I could stay the night?"

He did also kind of let his report be derailed by sex. He's become every irresponsible peer he ever scorned for shirking their duties to hook up in some downtown dive. Magnus is a terrible influence. Magnus is, quite possibly, the best thing that's ever happened to him.

"You're cute when you're post-orgasmic." Magnus stretches up until he can peck Alec on the mouth. "You have no filters whatsoever."

"Thought I barely had any at the best of times."

"Mm-hm," Magnus says. "Please stay the night. I'd say 'if you're not bothered by my houseguest', but the answer to that appears to be a resounding 'no'."

Alec sweeps a hand through Magnus's hair. "When I said I wanted to be with you, I meant all of you. Even the weird magical parts."

Magnus frames Alec's face with his hands. The kiss he lays on Alec's parted lips is careful, lingering until Alec opens to it, deepening only when Alec changes the angle. Alec isn't certain what it means.

He gets an inkling when Magnus pulls back. His eyes brim with mellow warmth, like he feels safe to look at Alec with such candid affection.

Here's a thing about dating Magnus Bane: Alec is getting better at it.


End file.
